The title of Rainer
Decker’s slim book can be simply translated as »Witch Hunt in
Germany«.
True to that title, Decker examines only a
single hunt, one that took place in the diocese of Paderborn from
1656 to 1658. Dr. Decker, who leads the history faculty at a
school in Paderborn, has written other works and consulted with
television productions about witches.
He has
even examined this hunt before, in »Die Hexen und ihre Henker.
Ein Fallbericht« (Freiburg, 1994) and »Die Päpste und die Hexe.
Aus den geheimen Akten der Inquisition
«
(Darmstadt, 2003).
This version seeks briefly to
tell a good story, as part of a series called »History Narrated«,
while clarifying the rest of witch hunting in Germany. Given the
limited scope offered by focusing on one hunt, Decker does
provide a useful introduction to the overall problem of the witch
hunts.

His story begins in the middle, with Ferdinand
von Fürstenberg. Von Fürstenberg was a cathedral canon from
Paderborn who also held the position of a private chamberlain for
the pope in Rome in August 1657. At that time, he received
materials about the ongoing hunt in Paderborn from its
prince-bishop, Dietrich Adolf von der Recke. After briefly
introducing us to this exchange, Decker quickly skims over the
basics of magic and witch hunting in the Western tradition up
through the 17
th
Century. With the second chapter,
Decker then covers the hunt in chronological order throughout the
rest of the book.

Although this hunt took place toward the end
of witch-hunting, it exhibited many of the diverse facets of
witch trials. Social tensions operating in early modern Germany
reveal themselves in Paderborn. These include fear and violence
among the lower classes, desire for order and protection of
privileges by the higher classes, and quarrels of neighbors. The
hunt likewise included many dimensions of witchcraft: learned
opinions pro and contra, inquisition, swimming, torture, burning,
possessions, the sabbat, murder, and even werewolves. Decker
illustrates these events with clear prose and generous quotes
from primary sources, bringing back the voices of skeptics and
believers.

The hunt’s progress offers numerous points of
interest for witch hunting. In early 1656, two teenage
half-sisters in the town of Brakel began to exhibit signs of
possession. They accused the servant-girl of the mayor of causing
their suffering through witchcraft. That implicated the mayor,
another councilman, and the local Capuchin monks. Although
sensible religious and secular authorities diagnosed the girls as
simulating their symptoms, a local professor at the University of
Paderborn, Bernhard Löper, took it on himself to exorcise them.
Löper emerges as the villain, whose public exorcisms and
utterances promoted the fear of witches that soon led to more
accusations. The Prince-bishop Dietrich Adolf vacillated and
hesitated about what to do. Shortly after he dismissed Löper in
April 1657, the professor staged a scandalous public
confrontation in the territorial parliament that accused the
bishop of being a »Hexen-Anwalt« or advocate for witches. The
number of possession cases expanded into dozens. Pressure by many
in Paderborn and in the countryside urged more strident actions
against witches. Street violence of the »possessed« against
alleged witches caused several deaths and had to be put down with
military force. In reaction, the prince-bishop established his
own inquisition court, which eventually led to about thirty
executions. The hunt abruptly ended with the public
reconciliation of the political factions in Brakel.

One unusual aspect of this hunt was its
political dimensions, mirroring struggles on the town council of
Brakel. Executions claimed victims from both sides, including the
mother of the original two possessed. Decker also focuses on the
attempted moderation by the papacy, especially through the
aforementioned Ferdinand von Fürstenberg. Correspondence from
Rome tried to advise the confused Prince-bishop Dietrich Adolf
toward attending to spiritual needs rather than following
prosecutorial methods. Even Pope Alexander VII himself read and
commented on the dossier about the hunt. In this context, Decker
discusses in detail the
Instructio
, printed in 1657, which
outlined how inquisitors should take extraordinary care in
examining cases of witchcraft. If moderation from Rome had been
more clearly enunciated, argues Decker, it might have slowed
hunting even more quickly. Paderborn was also, of course, briefly
the home of Friedrich Spee, whose 1631 book, »Cautio Criminalis«,
convinced many of the dangers of witch hunting. Spee’s cautionary
approach, however, had not converted Paderborn either.

Decker’s framing protagonist, Ferdinand von
Fürstenberg, followed Dietrich Adolf as Prince-bishop of
Paderborn. The enlightened Bishop Ferdinand abolished witch
hunting in the region. Decker also briefly recounts the
second-to-last witch trial in central Europe, that of Maria
Ursula Padrutt from 1780 in Switzerland. Toward the end of the
text, Decker examines a few possible causes for the 1656–1658
hunt, such as actual possession, fraud, poison, hatred of
mothers, and guilt about sexual feelings and behavior, before
dismissing them. He concludes that an irresponsible intellectual
authority fanned the flames of hysteria about demons. He also
largely blames political rivalries, both in the town of Brakel
and among the territory’s nobility, made worse by the indecisive
and insecure prince-bishop.

Several features help the novice to witch
hunting negotiate the tangled paths of understanding this strange
phenomenon. The scholarly apparatus is rather limited. Decker’s
bibliography is confined to listing primary sources (both
original and reprinted) and just a handful of books and articles
relevant to certain arguments made in the text. The few endnotes
cite only his use of primary sources. More helpfully, Decker
offers corrections to several »prejudices« or misconceptions
about witch hunting in boxes set aside from the main text. He
notes that witch hunting was not medieval (but early modern), it
did not kill millions, and it was not primarily a misogynistic
attack on women. In similar boxes, he defines several terms, such
as the inquisition and how it works, and lists numbers involved
in key hunts.
Of the fifteen pictures, about
half connect to this specific hunt and portraying people and
places mentioned in the text (although their green tint does not
aid their clarity).
The others illustrate images of
witches and torture from both near-contemporary and earlier
sources.

Decker’s main success is to show the diversity
of opinion that existed about witch hunting. There was no
monolithic mentality on the dangers of witches, especially by the
later 17
th
Century. Arguments were made based on
rational thought, evidence, philosophy, and the Christian
worldview both for and against a fear of witches. By then,
however, the tipping point toward rejecting a fear of witches was
at hand. That rejection depended on the clear and responsible
actions of political, intellectual, and spiritual
authorities.

Decker’s description of the Paderborn hunt is
clearly geared toward the general reader and beginner to witch
hunts. He provides sufficient background and context for the
novice to understand both issues of witch hunting and problems
prince-bishops had governing their territories in early modern
Germany. Those who already have some knowledge of witch hunting
can also learn from this unique case. Decker ably puts it into
the context of the witch-hunting mentality of that era. Like all
the hunts in general, this one in Paderborn demonstrates how fear
can be manipulated into the deaths of innocents.